Law and Order

It was childish of me to take such delight in seeing the perp walk photo of former state House Speaker John Perzel the other day, but I’ve never claimed to be particularly mature.

Perzel was the highest ranking of 10 Republicans charged last week in a three-year-old investigation into the diversion of public resources and employees to Pennsylvania legislative campaigns.

Even if he ends up beating the rap -- he's charged wth 82 counts -- Perzel deserved on general principles to be photographed in handcuffs. Over the years, he has been one of the poster children for the arrogant, cynical exercises of power by which our incumbent state lawmakers protected their jobs and padded their wallets.

Above, you can see another of my guilty pleasures, the photo I ran on my blog a few years ago of Perzel with a backdrop of pigs.

Talk about symbolism.

Here’s one of Perzel’s perp walk photos, taken by Carolyn Kaster of the Associated Press.

As it happens, I also had a thrill of seeing another alleged perp — Almost Heaven kennel owner Derbe “Skip” Eckhart — being handcuffed in court this morning. Judge Robert Steinberg set $25,000 bail, and until Eckhart comes up with the money, he’ll be in the hoosegow.

The judge also ruled that until his trial on animal cruelty and other charges, Skip can have no job involving animals and cannot obtain any more personal animals beyond the ones he has now.

I suspect this will lead to a lot of happy yipping tonight in the local animal kingdom.

I wish I could share a photo of Skip in cuffs, but Pennsylvania doesn’t allow cameras in the courtroom, and I’m not much of a sketch artist. So you’ll just have to close your eyes and imagine it.

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Bill as you can imagine, those of us who have rescue dogs that came from AH are CELEBRATING!!!...(Hugging my Labradoodle as I type...) I thank you with all of my heart for all that you have done over the years regarding Almost Heaven.

And if he is found innocent on all 82 counts, you can run a picture of him NOT in hand cuffs

Posted By: DON | Nov 17, 2009 11:32:08 AM

I will.

Posted By: bill white | Nov 17, 2009 12:20:22 PM

Bill,
In your opinion, do you think the current leadership in the State House, including Keith McCall and memebers of the Republican party, had any knowledge that this stuff was going on and just looked the other way, or do you think they were left out of the loop? I'm really just curious. Thanks.

Posted By: Jeff Hager | Nov 18, 2009 11:05:32 AM

What Perzel and the Republicans were doing was no secret to anyone. People were writing about it, including me, going back to early this decade. I can't speak to McCall, DeWeese and company, except to say that it would be extremely curious if they didn't know anything about the Bonusgate type activities taking place right under their noses. If they did, Corbett clearly felt he couldn't prove it.

Posted By: bill white | Nov 18, 2009 12:03:41 PM

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